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> Project Room > Past > Seen Anew: Art from Everyday Objects
Seen Anew: Art from Everyday Objects |  | |
02.20.09 - 03.29.09
From Guest Curator Missy Stevens
I grew up with a Yankee mentality. My Dad could have penned the old saying use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without . I m imbued with a desire to make use of scraps! My own work has used recycled materials in a variety of ways. At first, in my rag rugs, I chose to use strips of second hand corduroy pants to weave with, for their variety of color and softness. My thread paintings use all kinds of sewing thread, and the old spools often have some brilliant even shocking colors!
Last winter, looking for a change of pace, I decided to finally make something using a collection of scraps of old lace that I had for years. These small survivors were so inherently beautiful, even though their world had decayed around them, that they deserved to be reincarnated. The fragments in that box became three pieces populated with plants and birds. This work then led to the theme for this show.
Whatever turn our lives take, it s natural to be curious about how others respond to similar circumstances. I went looking for more artists who were using materials that might be considered ready for the trash by many, and elevating them to a new status laced with meaning. Wanting more than recycling, I chose artists whose work reinvented their materials.
Donna Marder uses playing cards like tiles, blocks of a quilt, or strokes of paint in Double Solitaire to make a new vision that reflects back on the original use of the materials. With her reverential irreverence Jeana Klein augments the scenarios of abandoned embroideries in delightful ways. In Self Portrait Liz Alpert Fay has added depth and layers of meaning to a child s dress, stitching her life and heart into it. The common lunch bag is elevated by Laura Evans. She sees and uses the qualities that differentiate each unassuming bag to make geometric compositions. Diane Savona haunts the yard sales of her neighborhood. Her work creates mythic garments, shrines to the women who previously owned the potholders and zippers she claims as her materials.
Altogether it s a feast of creativity, a celebration not only of the materials but also the stories and lives objects hold which now merge with the artists own lives.
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